Ryanair Latest: Air Stewards To Fly Planes

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has not only become famous for the budget airline he runs, but also his weird and whacky ideas for saving money. Earlier this year O’Leary scrapped check-in desks and began charging passengers £5 each way for the privilege of checking in online, he then charged £40 for those who arrived at the airport without their pre-printed boarding passes.

He also proposed charging £1 for passengers to use the toilet onboard Ryanair flights, and when asked what would happen if passengers refused to pay, he said he would charge them £1 to get back out again!

O’Leary also suggested removing a toilet to fit in an extra row of seats meaning more sales. He followed this by saying he was also prepared to remove rows of seats in order to have standing room only sections where he would be able to fit more passengers in.

Now not content with these slightly annoying ways of saving money, O’Leary is now considering getting rid of pilots!

As mad as this idea appears to be, he is only considering getting rid of ONE pilot per flight, thank goodness. He did however add that an air steward would be able to stand in during an emergency.

Unsurprisingly, pilots are not unduly worried about this latest statement and have dismissed it as ‘unwise and unsafe’, and the British Airline Pilots’ Association has declared that the public would be horrified.

Hopefully, as with O’Leary’s many other whacky suggestions this will be taken with the contempt it deserves. There are two pilots on a flight for a reason, obviously not just anyone (air steward or not) can step straight into a pilots footsteps, or seat, should he take ill for example. Whilst O’Leary revels in the controversy he creates and ingeniously uses these ideas as a form of free advertising, operating flights with only one pilot however, is likely to send customers running straight into the arms of his competitors.